Position in chronology
MAD 4, 114
About this tablet
A small Sargonic-period receipt from Umma in southern Iraq, written in Sumerian around the 23rd century BCE. It records the hide of a goat that died, apparently at a threshing floor. A man named Aḫuḫu handed the skin over to Asar-antila, and Ur-Šara is named, probably as the responsible official. Even a dead animal had to be accounted for: its skin went back into the institution's stores, and the loss was written down.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
One goatskin. The goat died, apparently at a threshing floor nearby. Aḫuḫu handed the skin over to Asar-antila. The name Ur-Šara follows. The tablet ends with a count of 23 years and 2 months. It does not say what that figure measures, though it may be an elapsed period or a dating notation.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 1 goat skin: 2. at the threshing floor (?) adjoining (?), 3. it (the goat) died. 4. Aḫuḫu 5. to Asar-antila 6. handed (it) over. 7. Ur-Šara. 8. 23 years, 2 months.
Our translation engine — Opus 5.5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Transliteration
1(asz@c) kusz ud5 su7 us2-su-da ba-a-usz2 a-hu-hu-e a-sar-an-ti-la-sze3 szu-e im-mi-us2 ur-szara2 2(u) 3(disz@t) mu 2(disz@t) iti
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MAD 4, 114. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P215276) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
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Related sources
One of the earliest specimens of human writing. Not literature, not law — accounting. The need to keep track of grain in a temple bureaucracy is what pushed marks-on-clay into a system that could one day carry epics.
A window into the world's first total state. The Ur III administration tracked every animal, every worker, every shekel — for a population in the millions. The level of paperwork was not exceeded until the modern era.